I’m pretty sure what I’m going to talk about today is not something new to you. You might have already heard, been told, seen, and even shopped personally at Althea Korea. Althea Korea made its debut appearance in the Malaysia beauty scene 2 months ago. Almost everyone I know has been asking me if I knew or tried shopping at the new online store and they want to know what I think before they place their order. You see, my friends sometimes treat me as the “experimental” type of person when it comes to online shopping. I have no idea what they are afraid of. Not like the online store will bite 😀 😀

I’m not going to torture you with my whole shopping experience first so here is my haul from Althea Korea. I know you are curious with what I got 😉

Now that you have already seen briefly of my overall haul, let me tell you what I think.

Interestingly, I found out what Althea mean. The national flower of Korea is Hibiscus syriacus, which is Mugunghwa in Korean. Althea is called the Mugunghwa (무궁화), which also known as Rose of Sharon. That solved my curiosity on the name Althea 🙂 . The concept of the online store is to be an one-stop shopping destination for all K-beauty products at an affordable, if not cheaper price. Just like being physically in Korea to shop for K-beauty products. Thus the name Althea – representing Korea and delivering Korea beauty to beauty enthusiasts all over the world.

The site is simple, clean, user-friendly and very easy to navigate around. It’s basically fool-proof type of website, even for someone who never shop online before. I have been asked so many times before on how to shop online. Actually there is no formula. Just follow the step by step and you’ll be done by the time you know it.

Price. The main question that everyone has been wondering. Yes, it is true that Althea offers lowest price in the market. It is even cheaper than buying from physical store in shopping mall. Product selection on the other hand is a work in progress. I believe Althea is working hard to add more and more brands or products into the store.

Althea Promises

Now, there are 3 simple ways on how you can start your online shopping at Althea – by Facebook, by Google Plus or even by creating new account the good ol’ way. I prefer to have an account so I register mine using the good ol’ way 😀

As for the navigation of the site, I find it to be easy as well. Everything is well-listed on the top menu bar. All you need to do is to pinpoint what exactly you are looking for i.e. makeup or skincare etc and click on the button on the top menu. If you select Skincare, you will be able to see ALL skincare products. If that’s too much for you, just click on the specific brand you want from the left menu and you will only see that specific brand selected.

I love it’s short but sweet info full product page. The description beside the product photo is the summarize version, which I find is good for quick reading, but if I really need to find out more about the product to decide if I want to buy it, I would need to scroll further down for a more detail version of product description.

This is what I’m talking about. Actually I prefer this type of description. It’s compact, not too lengthy like an essay and I’m able to find out what I wanted to know about the product. Basically this is where I decide if the product suits me.

If you’re impatient like me (sometimes) and you don’t want to spend time browsing, use the search box. Some online site search box can be a bit wonky, not this one. It’s pretty accurate provided you enter the correct name. Even before you press the Enter button, a bunch of similar results already appear. You can either select from the drop-down or press Enter to be directed to the search result page.

And if you find yourself still in the indecisive mode, try reading the Reviews left by other consumers. It helps.

I had a small hiccup when I was placing my order due to my own mistake. I accidentally pressed the “back” button at the payment page. My order was captured and I can see the full order, but I cannot make payment. So I contacted Althea customer service using the little green Help button on the bottom right of the page. I received a reply from the customer service within the short half an hour and my issue was solved there and then. I was impressed!

My order was placed on the 3rd September, parcel was shipped out from Korea on the 4th September, and I received the parcel on the 8th September. It took a total of 4 days including the weekend. That’s even faster than Luxola parcel which was sent from Singapore! The pretty baby pink box was wrapped with bubble wrapping before placing it in a bright pink courier wrapping. I gotta say, I love the pink theme. Along with the box is also the invoice of my purchase.

On the inside, I find that each and every product was individually bubble wrapped, carefully and neatly arranged in the box. The empty areas are stuffed with loads of soft tissue papers. Not the face tissue paper, k? It’s wrapping tissue paper.

Also included in the box are loads of samples from Missha and Skinfood skincare. I have used Missha before many years ago so I was happy to get Missha samples 😀

Here are my haul in detail. I took more than an hour of browsing and careful planning because I did not want to end up with the same product that I already have in my stash. First and top priority in my list was cleansers. I ran out of cleansers at home and that almost never happened to me before. So I picked up two cleansers from my favourite Korean brand, Innisfree 🙂

You will know that I apply Laneige Water Sleeping Mask everyday to boost hydration to my skin in order to lighten acne marks. This trick works and because I was applying daily, I ran out of the mask. So I grabbed a jar. It’s way cheaper too.

I also ran out of grainy face scrub and I’m now using non-grainy type from my stash. I still prefer something grainy for exfoliation and I’ve heard so much of Skinfood Black Sugar Mask. And this product is almost half price from retail store. Score!

I have something for face primer. I cannot stop buying makeup primer and I find myself constantly searching for “the one”. The Innisfree No-Sebum Blur Primer was calling out for me and based on all the positive reviews I found on Google, I knew I had to have this in my life. I now have it in my life 😀

The next following item has been on my wish list for so long. I often walk to Innisfree store but always forgotten to grab it. For some reason it never occur to me to buy it because I have so many powder that I’m using on rotation that it is not the top priority. This time I remember. It is slightly cheaper than the store so that’s a plus point for forgetting previously lol.

Lastly, an item which I’ve been trying to get my hands on from other online store last year and it is ALWAYS out of stock. I finally FINALLY got it! At a much more cheaper price as well. Double score!

Too Cool For School Dinoplatz Dear Brachiosaurus Oil Paper to Sponge (what a mouthful!) is an oil blotting paper BUT you don’t pick up the paper like normal. You use the sponge that comes with a sticky base to pick up a paper and blot. Too cute.

How do you like my haul? I did not expect to pick up mostly skincare. I thought I would go all out for makeup products but I guess my skincare stash is running low so I decided to pick up skincare products instead. All of them has already been taken out to use after I photograph them 😀

I have been receiving Althea newsletter recently on their current promotions such as freebies, special discount and many more. The current promotion would be 10% OFF all Laneige products from 15th to 18th September, and RM15 new sign ups for the month of September. Free shipping for all orders amounting RM150 still applies so start your shopping now 🙂